—————— THREE ——————
IT was at Amiens that the renowned Saint Martin gave half of his cloak to a beggar who stood shivering by the roadside. Other saints in that city, though we know less of their life histories, must have exercised even more generosity during the Middle Ages to build and rebuild the old cathedral in the face of repeated misfortune. The patience and zeal with which those men of Amiens raised up their cathedral four times from its ashes, remain forever in the fame of this most perfect of French Gothic churches.
When the Norsemen plundered the coast of France in 881 they sent a great fleet up the River Somme. Amiens, taken by surprise, fell before the attack of those reckless and powerful old Vikings, and the cathedral, then a flimsy wooden structure, was burned to the ground. A new building which the people of Amiens put up in the same place when they had sufficiently recovered from the losses of the invasion, was destroyed by lightning in 1019. The next structure was burned in 1107, and the one that replaced it was struck by lightning in 1218 and completely ruined. Then in 1220 the present cathedral was begun. Even that has not escaped entirely from the lightning and conflagration that had wrecked so many structures on the same spot. In 1258, before the work was completed, the woodwork caught fire, and was so badly charred that part of it had to be taken down and rebuilt. Traces of fire may still be seen on some of the arches. Later the slim central spire, which is one of the striking features of Amiens Cathedral, was so badly damaged by lightning that it had to be made over.
The chief treasure of Amiens is part of the head of John the Baptist, naturally a religious relic of extraordinary interest. It is kept in the chapel of Saint John Baptist, and shown only at the most important ceremonies. All that remains is the front part of the skull, including the face, and this is inclosed in a hood of silver-gilt. The relic is said to have been kept for a long time in one of the churches in Asia, from which it was removed to Constantinople, and later taken from that city to Amiens, where it has rested ever since.